1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to telephones and more particularly to a cellular telephone providing a map and driving directions for a remote location associated with a remote telephone number.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For three decades public call takers and dispatchers have had the capability known as automatic number identification (ANI) for identifying the telephone number of a 911 caller. This capability is now available to the general public with a service known as caller ID. In addition to ANI, E911 provides a capability known as automatic location identification (ALI) for translating the telephone number of the caller to a street address. It is the ANI/ALI capabilities that enable an E911 dispatcher to route emergency personnel to the caller without depending upon the accuracy of verbal information from the caller.
In more recent times, a capability known as geocoding has enabled E911 centers to convert a street address determined by ANI/ALI into a geodetic location, such as latitude and longitude, and to display a map of the local area about the street address to the dispatcher. The map can be important for public safety for removing ambiguity for locating street addresses and facilitating better dispatch to an emergency scene. The most advanced E911installations have the capability of tracking the mobile locations of emergency vehicles that are available or proceeding to the scene.
However, these capabilities, with the exception of caller ID, are not available to a general public user of a cellular or fixed telephone. General users of telephones have a need for generating a map and driving directions to a remote location associated with a remote telephone number.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system for providing a map and driving directions for a remote location associated with a remote telephone number designated with a user telephone.
Briefly, in a preferred embodiment, the system includes a user telephone and a server connected through the telephone system. The user telephone includes a location number designator for designating a remote telephone number and an object decoder for decoding software objects such as a map object having map information for the area about the remote location of a remote address associated with the remote telephone number and a driving directions object having driving directions information for traveling to the remote location. The server includes a map object generator for generating the map object from the remote telephone number and a driving directions object generator for generating the driving directions object from the remote telephone number and user location-determination information for a local address, a local telephone number, or local geodetic coordinates provided by a geodetic location device in the user telephone.
An advantage of the system of the present invention is that a user of a cellular telephone receives a map and/or driving directions for a remote location associated with a remote telephone number.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after having read the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments which are illustrated in the various figures.